The Daily Start-Up: Clean-Tech Clears A Major Hurdle In Calif.

This morning’s roundup of the latest venture capital news and analysis across the Web:

Art by Mike Lucas

Silicon Valley clean-tech investors are, no doubt, breathing a sigh of relief, as California voters rejected a proposal to suspend the state’s greenhouse-gas reduction law in last night’s mid-term elections, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The clean-tech industry in the U.S. has struggled over the last few years as it faced competition from overseas and less-than-solid support domestically, and investors pinned their hopes on the state’s greenhouse gas reduction law as one way of recharging the sector. Proponents of the ballot initiative argued that implementing the new law would hurt jobs in the state, already dealing with one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates.

U.S. companies looking to crack the foreign exchange market overseas face a tricky regulatory environment, with many countries prohibiting foreign companies from directly soliciting their citizens for forex services. Venture-backed foreign-exchange brokerage FXCM Inc., which filed for an IPO in early September, is finding this out, disclosing in its IPO prospectus that it’s restructuring its business to assuage concerns by regulators in the U.S., Canada and Japan over how the company solicits customers and executes trades, according to VentureWire. The profitable company, whose shareholders include Long Ridge Equity Partners, declined to comment further on the matter, citing SEC quiet-period rules for pre-IPO companies.

Andreessen Horowitz bucks the sluggish fund-raising trend by rounding up $650 million for its latest early-stage fund, more than double what it raised for its debut fund just about one year ago, reports The Wall Street Journal. The firm, co-founded by former Netscape Communications Inc. founder Marc Andreessen, has already backed such hot properties as Foursquare, Zynga and Skype.

The world of smart phone applications continues to attract serious attention from VCs — and that interest has spread to companies that provide technology that feeds into those apps. Urban Airship, which enables messaging and commerce inside smartphone apps, is seeing a good deal of success, opening a new office and setting plans to double its staff. And VCs have responded, providing $5.4 million in a Series B round led by Foundry Group, VentureWire reports.

And as the app business grows in prominence, so do the risks of running into litigation. Cambridge, Mass.-based mobile gaming start-up SCVNGR, backed by Google Ventures and Highland Capital Partners, among others, is finding this out, as it is being sued by the publisher of Bridal Guide Magazine for using the phrase “Race for the Rock” to advertise scavenger hunts in several states, the Boston Globe Reports. The publisher, which said in a lawsuit that it trademarked the term in 2006, is seeking at least $500,000 in damages as well as all the profits SCVNGR has made from the scavenger hunts in question. A SCVNGR spokesman had no comment for the Globe.

You know your product has made it into the cultural consciousness when a skit is done about it on Sesame Street. We saw this clip, thanks to Gizmodo, which describes an “iPogo” and it made us chuckle, particularly the part where they say, “If you want to comb your cat…there’s an app for that.” Very LOL.

And stay tuned to this channel today and tomorrow for coverage of the Dow Jones FASTech conference in Redwood City, Calif., which features some of the biggest names in the tech and VC industry. Find more about the conference itself here.

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Produced by the editors of Dow Jones VentureWire, Venture Capital Dispatch tracks the fast-moving developments at the intersection of high-tech innovation and venture capital finance. Featuring the VentureWire reporting team in the Silicon Valley, New York, Boston and Shanghai tech centers, Venture Capital Dispatch provides insight into the newest start-ups and latest trends in venture capital investing. Write us at VCdispatch@dowjones.com. For more information on Dow Jones products covering venture capital and other financial markets, go to http://pevc.dowjones.com.